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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867295">Fly, My Pretty, Fly!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idle_Hans/pseuds/Idle_Hans'>Idle_Hans</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pocket Universities [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, world-building</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:15:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>757</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867295</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idle_Hans/pseuds/Idle_Hans</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hogwarts isn't exactly the House With No Steps.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pocket Universities [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fly, My Pretty, Fly!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Woftinga Long is guest lecturing to the NEWT students for a term.  She has permanently injured legs and cannot walk more than a short distance without pain.  Instead, she floats along a few inches above the ground. This catches the eye of Rolanda Hooch.</em>
</p><hr/>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
Professor Long, I can't help but admire your method of movement.  The magic is acting on your skeleton to allow continued freedom of motion?</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
Yes.  Hogwarts favours the able-bodied with a vengeance.  There's no getting from anywhere to anywhere without traversing long corridors and several staircases, which is not something I can do on my feet except very slowly and with great pain.  But I didn't want to commit myself to a flying chair just to lecture here for a term.  Once you get into one of those things you don't get out.  And I rather think riding a broom in the corridors would not set a good example to the students.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
[<em>laughing</em>]  Certainly not!</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
A certain person and some of his Death Eaters used a form of unaided flight in the last war, and I did look into it; but it won't surprise you to learn that the magic involved is more than a little dark, and is rather bad for your long-term health unless you use even darker magic to limit the damage.  It also makes you look unnervingly like an obscurus.  So, thank you but no thank you to that.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
Indeed.</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
Magic carpet charms can be woven into almost any fabric of sufficient thickness, but they only fly when the cloth is fully unfurled.  Which rules out a close-fitting bodysuit under the robes.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
Pity.  That would be a good safety measure for first years learning to fly.  Someone always falls off. Every. Single. Year.</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
Standard broom enchantments are utterly exclusive to wood, but you surely remember that Moravian witch who experimented with aluminium in the 'twenties and 'thirties.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
Oh, yes.  Such a fuss when the Mionšíthal Firebirds tried to use them in the 1931 World Cup selection trials.</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
Anyway, the inventor and all her research were lost to Grindewald's War, but that was proof of alternative charm sequences existing.  And in an old catalogue for the Kitezh Museum I found a reference to a fifteenth-century toy broom crafted for the squib daughter of a Circassian princess.  To keep the magic-haters quiet, everyone was told it was made of unicorn horn.  But of course it was really narwhal tusk.  No unicorn horn would be long enough or strong enough to make even a child's broom.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
Not to mention the sheer impossibility of imposing magic upon unicorn horn.</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
So I went to Kitezh.  They're a bit standoffish in the Invisible City, and my request to study a museum artefact for personal benefit was politely refused until I brought out my trump card.  My grandmother is Jocunda Sykes.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
Really?</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
Which makes her the owner of the modified Oakshaft 79 used for the first, and only, direct flight across the Atlantic Ocean.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
I think I'm beginning to see where this is going.</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
At the time, the Kitezh Museum was putting together an exhibition on the history of advances in enchanting, and they dearly wanted to borrow Jocunda's broom.  Unfortunately for them, my grandmother is a bit of a curmudgeon unless you've taken the time to get to know her.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
Now I <em>know</em> I'm beginning to see where this is going.</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
You can imagine the effect of me opening my extendable briefcase in the curator's office, taking out the very broom in question, and dangling it in front of the man, along with a loan agreement that Gran had authorised me to sign.  If, that is, I saw fit to do so.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
[<em>laughing</em>]  Well played!</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
Suddenly, it was the easiest thing in the world for me to have several weeks of out-of-hours access to the Circassian toy broom.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
And I take it dead narwhal tusk and living human bone are sufficiently similar for the enchantments to be copied and transferred?</p>
<p><strong>Long:</strong><br/>
To an extent.  The bones in my legs and upper arms are a bit too short for best effect; so I can't even go as high or as fast as a toy broom without risking loss of stability.  But I am certainly not complaining.</p>
<p><strong>Hooch:</strong><br/>
The only person who'd be complaining is Severus.  Billowing robes or not, what with you swooping along the passageways like a solid ghost, you've quite stolen his thunder.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>Author's note, 9<sup>th</sup> October 2020:</b>
</p>
<p>When I wrote this I couldn't think of a good name for my original character, so I just called her something silly — 'Tamselinda Stretz' — when of course, she isn't one.  Months later, a better name popped into my head from nowhere.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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